Smokestack Comes Down At Steel Site

Bethlehem Steel brought down a 250-foot smokestack Saturday, where a baghouse will be built to clean the air at a Structural Products Division's coke oven battery, a company spokesman said yesterday.

Bethlehem recently agreed to pay $5 million in fines for pollution at the local plant, and the company announced a $25-million project (including the baghouse) to clean up its cokemaking operations.

Coke, produced from baking coal in the Steel's 284 ovens, is used to fuel blast furnaces in steelmaking. The blast furnaces in Bethlehem will close next year, and the coke produced here will be sent to Steel's plant in Sparrows Point, Md., company officials said.

The stack leveled Saturday served the plant's 80-oven No. 5 Battery, built in 1953 but not used since 1985.

Steelworkers are clearing the area for a vacuum-cleaner-like shed to be built at one of the plant's two remaining coke batteries, the 80-oven A Battery. Bethlehem also operates a 204-oven 2A Battery at the local plant.

The shed, or baghouse, will be built by the end of next year and will cut air pollution by 98 percent, a company spokesman said.

The $25-million pollution control project also includes two "scrubber cars" to move coke in the 2A Battery, and new doors for that facility's 204 ovens.